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Upper limit on the acceptable concentration of a hazardous substance
An
occupational exposure limit
is an upper limit on the acceptable
concentration
of a
hazardous substance
in workplace
air
for a particular material or class of materials. It is typically set by competent national authorities and enforced by legislation to protect
occupational safety and health
. It is an important tool in
risk assessment
and in the management of activities involving handling of dangerous substances.
[1]
There are many dangerous substances for which there are no formal occupational exposure limits. In these cases, hazard banding or
control banding
strategies can be used to ensure safe handling.
Background
[
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]
Simple representation of exposure risk assessment and management hierarchy based on available information
Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs) have been established for airborne workplace chemicals by multiple regulatory and authoritative organizations around the world for well over 60 years now. With the changing regulatory arena, shifting centers of manufacturing growth, and the move towards a more global view on occupational hygiene issues, it is important for the
Occupational Hygiene
profession to understand the current and growing issues impacting the continued viability of OEL's in our professional practice.
[2]
Although peer-reviewed health-based OELs are preferred for establishing safe levels of exposure or for implementing adequate controls to provide worker protection, the lack of publicly available OELs have led to other sources of safe levels to protect workers. Industrial or Occupational Hygienists are often on the front line of anticipating and recognizing the hazards of chemical exposure for workers, and must assess the risk of exposure through the use of OELs so that proper control strategies can be implemented to keep workers below the OEL values. In the absence of OELs however, there are a variety of tools that can and should be used to assess exposure potential of workers. The "Hierarchy of OELs" provides a continuum of occupational exposure limit values that allow assessment of the risk of exposure in order to apply adequate controls.
[3]
Hierarchy of occupational exposure limits (OELs)
Illustration of statistical output from IHSTAT using air sampling data
Personal air sampling is routinely conducted on workers to determine whether exposures are acceptable or unacceptable. These samples are collected and analyzed using validated sampling and analytical methods. These methods are available from OSHA Technical Manual and NIOSH Manual of Analytical Methods
[4]
Statistical tools are available to assess exposure monitoring data against OELs. The statistical tools are typically free but do require some previous knowledge with statistical concepts. A popular exposure data statistical tool called "IH STAT" is available from AIHA (
American Industrial Hygiene Association
). IHSTAT has 14 languages including English and is available for free.
[5]
Methods for performing occupational exposure assessments can be found in "A Strategy for Assessing and Managing Occupational Exposures, Third Edition Edited by Joselito S. Ignacio and William H. Bullock".
[6]
With the
World Health Organization
and the
International Labour Office
having now quantified the global burden of disease from psychosocial occupational hazards,
[7]
identification of OELs for such hazards is increasingly becoming a focus of attention for occupational safety and health policy and practice.
Types
[
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]
International limit values
[
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]
The
database
"GESTIS - International limit values for chemical agents"
[8]
contains a collection of occupational limit values for hazardous substances collected from 35 lists from 29 countries: various
EU member states
,
Australia
,
Canada
,
Israel
,
Japan
,
New Zealand
,
Singapore
,
South Korea
,
Switzerland
,
China
,
Turkey
, and the
United States
. The database comprises values of more than 2,000 substances.
The present database was elaborated in co-operation with experts from various international
occupational safety and health
institutions. It aims to give an overview of limit values in different countries. Since the limit values vary in their handling, the level of protection, and their legal relevance, the original lists of limit values and the explanations there should be considered as primary sources. Also the
chemical nomenclature
is diverging,
synonyms
can for example be found in the
GESTIS Substance Database
.
The database is also available as an app for mobile terminals with Android or iOS operating systems.
See also
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References
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Bibliography
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